Thursday, February 2, 2017

Groundhog's Day Open Thread

This is a very special day. It is the day that our beloved Pennsylvania cousins coax Punxsutawney Phil, the US Weather-Laureate and groundhog, from his/her burrow to predict exactly how much longer winter will last.

While we're waiting with great anticipation to know what Phil will predict, just talk about anything - the riots at Berkley, pending Supreme Court Nominee grilling from the Senate, or anything you like. Just keep it civil because Punxsutawney Phil needs to concentrate..

33 comments:

First this. "People" are freaked out that "Trump referred to Frederick Douglas in the present tense as if he were alive today." The idea, apparently, is to make gullible blacks and smug liberals think that Trump thinks Douglas is alive ergo he doesn't know (or care) who Douglas is.

Here's what Trump said: "Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who has done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice."

You actually need to misinterpret that pretty extremely to take from this that Trump referred to Douglas in any way that suggests he thinks he's still alive.

The AP claims to have a transcript of Trump's call with Mexico in which Trump supposedly mocked the President of Mexico and threatened to send the military if Mexico doesn't get its "bad hombres" under control.

The problem is that Mexico flat out denies any of this was said and Trump described the conversation at the time as "very positive."

Well, lo and behold, the AP got a second transcript (probably same source) about the call with Australia and it was described as just as bad ending when Trump said, "this is the worst call I've had today" and then hung up on Australia's PM.

Australia's PM is more cagey about what was said, saying only that they discussed their differences and that the relationship is strong. Trump, for his part, came away agreeing to keep the deal Obama struck which is what supposedly soured the call.

The AP has had a bad run of luck in the last few weeks. They also reported that some guy claimed his mother died while he was delayed at Customs by Trump's orders. Then they claimed some Imam from his mosque said it wasn't true. Then the AP had retract THAT claim because it the FIRST story was true.

One would think that there is an ongoing, concerted effort to make the MSM look completely incompetant, or to expose how news organizations don't really care about the truth, just the clicks. "If it bleeds, it leads", or in this case "If it makes Republicans/Trump/etc. look bad, it leads..." Though Trump is going a great job of not helping himself.

The hashtag on Twitter, designed to show outrage over Trump's remarks on Douglass, doesn't even spell his name right.

Is this important? Well, kinda. It looks pretty dumb to come to the defense of a figure you don't care enough about to spell his name correctly. It looks even dumber when the spelling of that person's name was self-selected in order to stand out. And it looks completely retarded once you reflect on the gravity of an emancipated former slave choosing his own name.

So, yeah, misspelling Douglass's name is a pretty strong indicator that the man is but a prop to you.

T - It just proves how much they don't really care about the subject they appear to be morally outraged about. Their outrage is based on parsing out indignation on a syllable-by-syllable basis.

USA Today wrote something about how outrageous Trump's immigration EO is 'cause look at the Statue of Liberty! She's wearing Arab garb! Yeah, no...as a degreed student of the history of fashion/costume, what she is wearing is actually a Greco/Roman toga and a patrician Greco/Roman toga at that.

Oh, and some say Lady Liberty is not a woman, but that's for another day.

The other day, Trump confirmed that he would keep Obama's order on benefits to gay partners. At the time, he issued this statement:

"President Donald J. Trump is determined to protect the rights of all Americans, including the LGBTQ community. President Trump continues to be respectful and supportive of LGBTQ rights, just as he was throughout the election."

The left ignored this, naturally.

Today, we have a counterattack by the left. Apparently, there are hundreds of drat Executive Orders floating around DC. Some are written by the White House, some by outsider. The AP has found one which they cannot confirm was written by Team Trump which seeks to protect religious liberty and therefore "could result in weakening LGBT protections."

A jury found Allen Scarsella guilty on 11 counts of felony assault and one riot offense for pulling the trigger and wounding five Black Lives Matter protesters in Minneapolis 14 months ago.

The trial of the 25-year-old shooter featured numerous revelations about the racist language he and his companions that night had used in the lead-up to their confrontation at a demonstration in the name of Jamar Clark. These included Scarsella's messages saying he was happy to get the same gun as George Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed Trayvon Martin, and his stating that he would take target practice "for when we have to shoot black guys."-------

Scarsella's defense team had argued that he was only trying to save the group of young white men who'd accompanied him that night. Nathan Gustavsson, who has also been charged for his role in the confrontation that night, testified that a small group of Black Lives Matter protesters had followed the four white men off the Fourth Police Precinct premises and back to their cars.

Both Scarsella and Gustavsson claimed they were assaulted by those protesters, and Gustavsson said one had pulled a knife on him, inspiring Scarsella to shoot back in defense. (Under cross-examination Gustavsson would admit that while he'd seen something metal, he could not be certain it was a knife.)

I'm seeing a lot of people mocking the snowflakes with #notmygroundhog. LOL!

The jobs numbers are out. This is funny. They are basically Obama's numbers, and they would be some of his best. 277,000 jobs compared to expected 185,000. The funny thing is, they left is so deranged they are trying to smear these numbers by whining about low wage growth. The funny thing is that in a few months, they will switch their attack to saying "Obama left Trump a great economy."

Anthony, I'm not sure why that didn't get more coverage. Sometimes they miss things. There was a "soldier" who shot a transit cop in Denver the other day and he turned out to be a Muslim extremist. Barely got mentioned even in the local papers.

Chilly and cloudy down here with sporadic rain. I can't say I mind the groundhog prediction, though, since I like cooler weather (I know, I live in the wrong place for that). And it sounds like the left is becoming increasingly unhinged... I don't mind them disgracing themselves further but the violence is disturbing.

They did confirm it wasn't a pleasant friendly call, though. There was some tenseness, there. AP may have overplayed it but there was some truth to their report. PM Turnbull said, "These conversations are conducted candidly, frankly, privately." Which is sort of a dodge to the question.

And world leaders always put a friendly gloss to calls. Do you think, for instance, that Reagan would've acknowledged publicly that Margaret Thatcher had hung up on him during the Falklands crisis?

Oh, and Putin (and, yes, it was Putin) violated the Minsk cease-fire in the Ukraine within 24 hours of talking with Trump on the phone. Nikki Haley condemned it but from Trump? Not a peep.

And if you say, "What are you saying we should do, immediately go to war?" I will simply file you away as a person who cannot be taken seriously on foreign affairs.

Anyway, Tom Rogan has some good advice for Trump:

"Trump needs to act fast. He should immediately release a statement condemning the Russian incursions — preferably via Twitter. The 140 characters will throw Putin off balance, because it shows a directness that Obama always lacked. Second, Trump should explicitly warn Putin that if the Russians continue their offensive, he will arm the Ukrainian military with anti-tank missiles. The Russians will pay heed to such a threat because their armored supremacy is currently unchallenged. Third, Trump should use the credibility he has gained with the Sunni-Arab monarchies (who like his hard line on Iran) to pressure them to boost (or at least not cut) OPEC’s output. Putin needs oil revenue. We should make sure he doesn’t get it. Fourth, Trump should use all three of the previous actions to produce a better NATO deal with the E.U. A deal along the lines of: “I’ve stood up for European security, so you better start spending 2 percent of GDP on defense.”"

Kit, Turnbull also called it constructive and confirmed that Trump has agreed to abide by the deal he supposedly insulted Turnbull over. So Trump beat him up only to agree with him? And he said the relationship remains strong, even though he could easily have taken digs at Trump and everyone would have backed him?

Add this to Mexico denying every part of the AP story about their phone call, and Trump calling both FakeNews and I'm going to believe this is some insider source spreading lies.

As for Russia: Haley spoke, Trump didn't backtrack, the sanctions remain in place. Doesn't bother me. His focus is Iran, which has done something much more dangerous.

Yeah, and Richard Reich, is floating the idea that it was Trumpsters who actually were the rioters at Berkley 'cause a few 'peaceful protesters where hurt too. That proves it if it's. Nobel prize winning economist who works for the NYT, right?

The best part of the Berkeley riot was that the speaker - the right wing, fascists, racist, anti-immigration bigot - is a gay man from England. I saw his interview last night on Carson Tucker and he is gay, gay, gay and proud.

So the protesters come out looking anti-gay, anti-foreigner, anti-free speech and on top of that damaged the MLK civic center. The only way they could have looked worse is if they would have beaten Milo to death with an aborted baby.

Trump should immediately end all federal funding to California schools until they get their shit in order under, you'll love this, Title IX.

At this point in time both sides are worldly enough to look beyond the identity of the speaker. For example, Sherriff David Clarke and Barack Obama are both black men, but they believe in different things and thus appeal to different people.

So the protesters came across as thugs who suppressed conservative speech with violence with violence, not anti-immigrant/gay/whatever.

Nordstrom is dropping Ivanka Trump's clothing line and Steve Harvey has hired a PR expert. They are learning the lesson Oprah learned when she endorsed Obama, when a popular apolitical figure picks a side, they lose a big chunk of their fans.

The department store chain said on Thursday that it had decided to put the brakes on its relationship with Ms. Trump and removed her brand from a list on its site. “We’ve said all along we make buying decisions based on performance,” Nordstrom said in a statement. “In this case, based on the brand’s performance, we’ve decided not to buy it for this season,” referring to the spring.A spokesman for the brand disputed Nordstrom’s assertion that it had not bought clothes for the coming season.Nordstrom had been subject to the "#GrabYourWallet" and "Boycott Trump" campaigns due to their affiliation with Ivanka Trump. The creator of #GrabYourWallet, Shannon Coulter, claimed victory on Twitter.

"President Trump’s personal involvement in the F-35 program accelerated the negotiations and sharpened our focus on driving down the price. The agreement was reached in a matter of weeks and represents significant savings over previous contracts. This is a good deal for the American taxpayer, our country, our company and our suppliers," the statement said.

Lewandowski was a divisive figure on the trail, sparring with reporters and fellow Trump operatives, but even after leaving the campaign he was a loyal surrogate for the candidate on television. Lewandowski opened his lobbying firm in late December with a partner, Barry Bennett, the former campaign manager for Republican Ben Carson.

Lewandowski and his firm helped Lockheed and Hewson devise a new, more conciliatory strategy for their discussions with Trump, one person familiar with matter said.